National Board Quotas and the Gender Pay Gap among European Managers

Abstract

As European countries have mandated quotas for women’s representation on boards, and as women have increasingly entered the ranks of management, a persistent gender gap in managerial pay remains. Drawing a sample of managers in the 2010 European Social Survey, the gender gap in pay was decomposed, finding that employer devaluation of women accounted for the majority of the gender gap in pay. This was especially true in countries without mandated quotas, but in countries that had adopted quotas for female representation on boards, results were consistent with the proposition that quotas moderated the labour market for managers (i.e. the gender gap in managerial pay was smaller as was the portion of the gap attributable to discrimination). As board quotas have increasingly been adopted across Europe, more research is needed on their ameliorative effects on gender inequality in the wider labour market.

Does a gender pay gap exist on executive boards? An empirical multilevel analysis of executive board compensation in German listed companies

“…The authors attribute this to gender stereotyping and discrimination, which are more pronounced in the case of external appointments. Maume et al (2019) also look at European countries with and without statutory gender quotas and show that female managers earn significantly less than male managers whereby the differences are less pronounced in countries where a gender quota is mandatory. In the U.S. research context, where individual board compensation has been required to be disclosed for some years and (with exception) no gender quota is mandated, empirical evidence predominantly supports the existence of a gender pay gap.…”

“…In addition, some studies examined the determinants of executive remuneration (Marchetti and Stefanelli 2009;Rapp and Wolff 2010;Andreas et al 2012;Bugeja et al 2016;Acero and Alcalde 2020). Few studies explicitly addressed gender pay gaps, revealing systematically lower compensation of female executive managers (Bell 2005;Elkinawy and Stater 2011;Maume et al 2019). However, a more in-depth analysis of the extent to which the remuneration of female and male executive board members differs has so far only taken place in the context of the monistic board system-particular for U.S. companies.…”

Gleichheit durch Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen?

“…Folglich argumentieren wir, dass sowohl die unbereinigten als auch bereinigten Einkommensungleichheiten in Betrieben, in denen Frauenquoten angeboten werden, geringer ausfallen. Wir formulieren folgende Hypothese: (Bertrand et al 2018;Maume et al 2019). Allerdings kann eine geringere Geschlechtersegregation in Führungspositionen einen sogenannten "Trickle-down"-Effekt nach sich ziehen, sodass auch Frauen, die nicht direkt durch diese Maßnahmen betroffen sind, eine bessere Positionierung sowie Entlohnung erhalten (Huffman et al 2017).…”

“…Demgegenüber bestehen keine Einkommensunterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern mit höherem Qualifikationsniveau in Betrieben mit einer freiwilligen Frauenquote, wohingegen hohe geschlechtsspezifische Einkommensungleichheiten in Betrieben ohne Frauenquote vorzufinden sind. Dieser Befund ist in Einklang mit der Forschung, die gezeigt hat, dass Frauenquoten für Betriebsvorstände geschlechtsspezifische Einkommensungleichheiten zwischen Vorstandsvorsitzenden abbauen (Bertrand et al 2018;Maume et al 2019). Durch den Vergleich der Lohnlücken mit und ohne Berücksichtigung der beruflichen Stellung von Beschäftigten wird weiterhin deutlich, dass sowohl die berufliche Geschlechtersegregation geringer ausfällt als auch die bereinigten Einkommensunterschiede.…”

The gender pay gap and women in managerial positions: V4 countries in the light of the European Union

“…The gender pay gap can be defined as the difference in salaries of men and women with the same positions, and it has also been investigated in the literature (see, e.g., Bergmann, 1974;Blau, 1977;Bayard, Hellerstein, Neumark & Troske, 1999). It was analyzed for Europe (Maume, Heymann & Ruppanner, 2019;Aláez-Aller, Longás-García & Ullibarri-Arce, 2011;Arulampalam, Booth & Bryan, 2007), the US (Srinivas, 2007;Blau & Kahn, 2007), and South Africa (Adelekan & Bussin, 2018;Bhorat & Goga, 2013), among others. According to Eurostat, women in the EU are less present in the labor market than men.…”